Fight Song (20 page)
“He could come back soon,” she said and took a bite of it, which made him feel great, seeing her eat something.
“He could come back tomorrow,” Coffen said.
She nodded.
“He could come back tonight,” Coffen said.
“You never know,” she said, handing the plum to him, but he didn’t dig in; he was too excited.
“He might be parking the car right now out front,” Coffen said. “Right?”
She slunk down a bit in her beach chair.
“What do you think, Mom? Couldn’t he be parking?”
“I doubt it.”
“Maybe I’ll go out front and look. Do you think he’s out there?”
“Anything’s possible,” she said.
“Can I go check?”
“If you want.”
“I hope he’s out there,” Bob Coffen said, holding and finally eating the heart.
Now, sitting with the mop bucket, sitting miles away from his wife and kids, it’s hard for Coffen not to think that this is rock bottom. Maybe his mother-in-law had been right when she called Bob an anchor around Jane’s neck. Maybe he was dragging the whole family under. Maybe they’ll all drown because how can they be expected to keep their heads above water with him contributing nothing?
He’s still crying and kicks the mop bucket. It doesn’t tip over, only travels a few feet away.
He has to fight, he thinks. There’s still time. But how? Maybe it’s a choice to live your life tarred and feathered in fluorescent orange. Maybe Bob Coffen can shower it off.
It’s not long before the bandmates, sans Javier, clamber backstage, along with Kat and her kid. It appears as if Javier’s threat had legs and he’s flown the coop, leaving French Kiss no choice but to cancel the gig. The remaining members are incensed. They are speaking in terms of vengeance. It’s Ace who spearheads these violent delusions. He advocates for immediate retribution and has been expressing these prerogatives via a manifesto on the high points of wanton carnage: “There will be justice,” he filibusters while pacing, the rest of them forced to soak up his venom like bored sponges, “and I’m not talking about that judge-and-jury justice. Nothing civilized. Nope, there will be some extracurricular justice. Let’s say that Acey isn’t afraid to haunt the dark shadows of the law. I won’t shy away from menace. It’s in my blood. My granddaddy was a bootlegger, and his granddaddy was a bootlegger. I come from a lineage of those unafraid of an eclipse of conscience, if you know what I mean. I’ll make sure Kathleen and me have an alibi. We’ll go out of town for a weekend. We’ve been talking about Vegas or maybe something more relaxing. Catalina is supposed to be stunning. Who knows? It might be something as simple as the mud baths up in Calistoga. And while we’re safely out of the area, Mr. Javier
Torres will be the victim of”—Ace uses air quotes for the next two words—“‘random violence.’ I won’t rest until I’m wearing that bastard’s Adam’s apple like it’s an ascot.”
“Let’s get bloody!” Bob says, using the signature line from Disemboweler IV as a way to commiserate with Ace.
“I knew I dug your style,” Ace says and rubs Bob on the shoulder.
“It’s only one show,” Kat says. “I know you’re disappointed, baby, but it’s not your fault.”
The other bandmates attempt to console Ace with low-grade clichés:
“We’ll come back better than ever once we dial in a new bassist.”
“We can be even greater than the great band we already are.”
“French Kiss will climb higher on the throne of rock and roll.”
“Tonight was supposed to be special!” Ace blurts, his voice getting really agitated. “I’d planned something really special and Mr. Javier Torres bastardized my special evening.”
“You can’t bastardize a time of day, bro,” the French singer corrects again.
“I can’t believe he did this to us,” says Ace. “Tonight was going to be a really important night.”
The room goes quiet.
Coffen is in a unique position to understand why Ace is so upset. Certainly, Kat’s kid knows, too, but he doesn’t seem to be locked into what’s bothering Ace right now. Bob empathizes. He knows how deadly it can feel when you envision how something will play out, much like reading the signs at Björn’s show: He and Jane were supposed to take in the information and use it as a way to better their
marriage, but somehow Bob messed it up, made her so mad she walked out. Bob felt that sting so viscerally, watching Jane leave him in the ballroom, and he doesn’t want Ace to endure something similar. He wants Ace to be saved from it. “Do it anyway,” Bob says.
“What?”
“You know what,” Coffen says. “Do it now.”
“Do it backstage here?”
Bob nods and smiles. He’s stopped crying. “Why not? Why wait one second longer?”
“Yeah?”
“Live a little,” Coffen says.
Ace’s eyes bounce between all present—the remaining members of French Kiss, Coffen, the boy, and finally, Kat. He fumbles through his pocket for something and kneels in front of her, still in his Kiss makeup and leather ensemble. “I meant to do this onstage in front of our legions of loyal fans. I wanted to make this something really special for you, my queen, but alas, there’s nothing I can do about that now. And maybe it’s better for Acey to do it like this. Because we’ll never have a fancy life. Ours will be a modest existence. I’m not rich or famous and I never will be. I’m just a janitor.”
“My dad has a better job than you,” the boy says.
Ace only smiles at him and continues: “I’m another person getting by who’s trying to do my best. But I’ve done hard living, which has taught me that when something makes you smile, that’s what really matters. Like they say, life is short and life can be hard, but you and me, we make the world better for each other. I promise to always try to do that. I’ll never quit trying to make you happy, and I’ll always try to provide for you. I love your son.”
“I’m not calling you dad,” says the boy.
“Shhh,” Kat says to him.
“Never call me dad, dude,” Ace says. “But let’s be friends, okay?”
The boy looks away.
“I love this band,” Ace says. “I’m even starting to love my new friend, Bob. So here we all are in a room that stinks like puke, but that’s the way the world is, right? No matter how happy you are, things are never ideal. There’s always a catch. At least there always is for normal people. Maybe millionaires have it better. Who knows? But we’re the normal people, and normal people make do with what the world gives them. We are happy no matter how the room smells.”
“Oh, Ace,” she says.
“I’m serious, my queen. No matter how the room smells we’ll be happy. I know without any doubt that I want to spend the rest of my life with you. Let’s go
mano a mano
versus the world together. I will love you and your son for all time. Will you make me the happiest Ace in the whole deck?”
“My dad’s condo has a huge deck,” the boy says.
“Stop it,” Kat says to him. “This is what I want.”
“What about what I want?” the boy asks.
“I hope you can be happy for me,” she says. “I love you. Your dad loves you. Ace loves you. All of that makes you a lucky boy.”
He doesn’t say anything.
Kat looks at kneeling Ace, who says, “Will you please marry me before the rest of my hair falls out?”
“I can’t wait to marry you.”
He slides the ring on her finger.
He stands.
They smooch, hug each other.
To Bob, the boy sort of looks happy, whether he wants to or not.
French Kiss starts clapping and howling. Each member pushes in and hugs Ace and Kat and the boy.
There Bob Coffen is, humbled and alive and speechless. This is what he wants; this is what he needs—to answer his wife’s dental bib. For if a motivating force is what she requires to swim against the sweeping, raging current of their complicated life, isn’t the best thing Coffen can offer her what Ace has said to Kat: to be happy no matter how the room smells?
“Aren’t you going to tell us congratulations, Bobby-boy?” Ace is asking.
“Can I hug, too?” Coffen asks.
“Get in here,” Ace says.
Bob shuts his eyes and feels their bodies in his wide arms.
“We are happy as clams,” Ace says.
“You got that right,” Kat says.
“My man?” Ace says to the boy.
The kid nods—no small victory.
“Sorry you didn’t get to gig tonight,” Kat says to the whole band, but mostly to her newly anointed fiancé. “I know you were excited.”
“It’s more than fine,” Ace says to her. “Especially since we might still be able to salvage the gig.”
“How?” the French singer asks.
Ace looks at Coffen, all of them still tangled in a hug.
Who’s to say that Javier actually needs to be Javier? The band only needs someone to stand there like a fool and pretend to play the bass, amp never getting turned on. They dress Coffen like an official member, make him up as an exact replica. He likes the face paint a lot. Then they mount the stage and Bob embarks upon his world premiere, a quasi-Javier, a bassist roaming the limelight.
When he first hits the stage, his feet begin to tingle, then his hands. His vision gets all spotty around the edges and Bob thinks he’s going to pass out from nerves. He makes eye contact with Ace, who must see the panic in his eyes because, like a savvy veteran, he saunters over to Bob and says, “For the next forty-five minutes, we are rock gods.” Coffen keeps his eyes shut for the whole first song, pretty much staying in one place, not getting into the performance too much. But when he hears the audience scream, when he hears all the heads present clap and whistle and hoot, Coffen opens his eyes and smiles.
Slowly, he test-drives the give in his hips.
By the time the set is half over, he whips his wig around in heavy metal spasms.
He waggles his tongue at pretty girls in the crowd and notices their welcoming flair as they flirt back with
salacious gestures, one even baring her breasts for Coffen to appreciate.
Pelvic thrusts—à la Bob’s pitch for Scroo Dat Pooch—haven’t seemed so hopeless and clunky and arrhythmic in the history of rock and roll, but the music, the stage, the fancy lighting, all these aid his thrusts mightily.
He’s getting even sweatier than he had been when riding the bike and he’s having the time of his life. Feels wonderfully winded. Feels light-headed and loves every second of being live entertainment. Live! There’s no computer screen. There’s no streaming. No tape delay. No buffering. Bob Coffen is a human standing and sweating onstage in front of a roomful of other humans.